23 July 2012

I have always loved India. From
their religion, cricket, beautiful women, vegetarian food to the few wonderful
Indians who are my friends. For those of you who have being there, you would
understand that incredible ‘mystic’ feeling I get when I am in India.

The amazing colours, markets,
temples, and all kinds of people make India really unique.

The over 6,000-year culture of its
people and its rich history makes India different from any other country in the
world.

The transgender bright saree clad
prostitutes, the cabbie who drove me all day around Mumbai for 400 rupees, the
other who I kept my luggage safely with in his cab while I shopped in Chennai,
numerous workshops in Mumbai and Delhi, Piyush Pandey and Sonal Dabraal the
O&M creative stalwarts, the fantastic British Airways marketing team and
the shopping experiences are what makes India memorable to me.

But that is only scratching the
surface.

India our neighbour, just 22 miles
from Sri Lanka by sea is a country I have admired even before I visited.
Hinduism, the culture, and the history of India have always captured my
imagination. Always wishing my ancestry would be originating from North India
even if it were 3,000 years ago, as a Sri Lankan, my heart glowed with pride.

As I grew older actually
experiencing ‘incredible’ India has been incredible. So cliché but true.

Sri Lanka and India are the best of
neighbours. We admire the Indians for their work ethic, creativity,
intelligence and above all their loyalty to their country and friends.

Vande Mataram.

My connection to India.

Most of all I believe that our two
cultures are a tight link with many practises shared, norms followed. We always
have common denominators.

Why over the passed few decades
both governments don’t work to strengthen this relationship but rather grow
more apart is my loss. Is it your too?

Vande Mataram.

I have to go now. The England –
South Africa test at the Oval. Today’s the last day. England has to bat out the
day with six wickets in hand.

Gutted. But it’s my choice to watch
or not.

When governments have to make
decisions for millions of people, do they consider the choice of the people?

When I die, I want to die
knowing I will be reincarnated as an Indian. Born to a rich Indian family of
course.

‘Anyone
can be creative’ rolls the call of many. Have you noticed this statement will
come from the most straight-laced people possible?

99.9%
of the time.

The
Big Idea be it in the sciences, business, or anything we do to make a living is
important. Various questions abound in today’s market, especially alike ‘how
can my company or I make money on the Internet’?

But
most commonly ‘The Big Idea’ is the most important factor in marketing and
communications.

Anything
is born of an idea, and in marketing and advertising the idea is king.

Various
‘creative’ people have given their theories in this. The creative process I
most admire and most advertising people of nay (intended) worth will recognise
to follow in a brainstorm to arrive at the Big Idea is as follows:

Getting together
as much as raw material.

The fun part,
exploring every inch and aspect of it, playing with it.

This is where we
suits never get it, well most people don’t. Just walking away from it and
doing nothing. Recognise those creative who happen to be playing games on
their really posh, high performance Mac computers anytime you walk into
their department? Well actually they’re allowing their sub-conscious to
work.The mind silently works
best when you are actually doing something else. So the next time you see
your creative team playing war craft, encourage it. The better, join.

The unconscious
mind offers up the idea. Honest.

Step five is
where Cannes Lions awards are won and also millions in dosh. This is when
behind locked doors; the creative team will sit to trash, push, probe,
hold the idea up to an in-built set of standards and find it unworthy.

Then
and only then is when ideas like facebook, Google, Cannes Grandprix Lions
happen. Please see previous Cannes Lions Creative Bravery Presentation here:

Creativity,
creative, is a discipline. Just like someone is a scientist or a businessman.
What we marketers must understand is that we are in charge of a brand, and what
makes us good is the fact that we can understand and recognise great ideas.

A
person who can sing and play an instrument through singing or playing by ear is
creative. So is the kid who draws a perfect cat when he’s two years old. So is
that tattooed, longhaired, two earring, pierced, middle aged schizophrenic who
writes the body copy on your ads.

The
best marketers are the one’s who work on the most successful brands and them
you will see having a very good relationship with their creative from the
advertising agency. They recognise they are good marketers as this is what has
chosen them in their life, like a doctor who always knew they wanted to be one,
and now is damn good.

So
are those in the creative department of your advertising agency. They have
learned to generate ideas, like we were born to run successful businesses.

Leave
the creative to the professionals. Don’t kid yourself you know better. Otherwise
you would now be sitting on their side, making the big bucks.

1 July 2012

Today was the pre-launch to one of
the goals on my bucket list. Seeing my kid off to Oxbridge for Higher
Education. Just got back home after dropping her off at the Oxford University
head start program.

She’s at the Hertford College for the next five days
learning at this hallow institution the art of Engineering. All things related
to it to help figure if that’s what she wants to do with the rest of her life.
As we mere mortals are condemned to work for our living, I think this is an
excellent way to help a teenager decide what they want to achieve in life. As
most if not all Asian parents we dream of her becoming a doctor of medicine.
But most of all I love the fact that she’s able to experience all crafts of
life, be it be music, languages, mathematics or even design for that matter.

So this post as much as about my
bucket list, it’s also about her. Although I must admit she’s not even half as
crazy as her father. Which is a good thing I am sure everyone may say, but as
much as my happiness at seeing one goal pre-launch off my bucket list, I think the biggest
one of all as a father, I also hope that she will go through all what I have
gone through in life. Sorrow only teaches you to be stronger, and be extremely
happy when happiness is there in your life. In mine, today!

June this year was one of the most
awful months in my life. I celebrated my daughters birthday my second nephews
entrance to the best University in Washington DC, GWU and pilgrimaging with him
in Sri Lanka . With all this joy came my regression to driving drunk and
crashing my first nephews brand new car, fracturing my foot, getting robbed of
money twice to losing a man who was like my younger brother in Sri Lanka.